The most immediate challenge in Britain is installing the fibre-optic infrastructure. Replacing copper wire with fibre-optic cabling will take time and money: BT, for example, has announced it will spend £1.5bn implementing its plans for an FTTC network to cover 40% of homes and businesses. If we were to go the whole hog and run fibre to every home and business in the country, that would cost many billions more.
But from the technology point of view, of course, it isn’t only a matter of installing the fibre. Many existing routers and connectivity devices would have to be replaced, as some aren’t designed to work with fibre-optic networks.
The technology, too, has an influence over how fast the market for NGA can be built. A few entrepreneurs, for example, have been lucky enough to use the very latest video-conferencing suites, with high-definition screens that make it seem you’re in the same room as your client. But most still haven’t, and others may be reluctant to abandon face-to-face contact in favour of high-tech solutions.
And that means less tech-aware businesses – who may be sceptical about the benefits of videoconferencing, software-on-demand or collaboration tools, for example – may not consider that they need it; after all, it was only a few years ago that 2Mbps broadband services were being marketed to the smallest businesses as a step-change from dial-up access.
Indeed, with NGA in its early days, software applications designed to use higher download and upload speeds just haven’t been brought to market yet – although that could change internationally, as optic-fibre networks start to be more widely adopted in cities such as Stockholm, Tokyo and Amsterdam.
And no business, of course, would want to upload high-definition video content to a website if they can’t be sure that their customers can access it.
Hanging over the whole issue is the debate over the digital divide. If you’re a technology-savvy rural entrepreneur, for example, you’ll be hoping that someone – a telecoms company, a public body, a group of local businesses, or a combination of the three – invests in fibre broadband in your area.
But you’ll also be aware that often when new technologies come along, it’s often cities and semi-urban areas that get connected first. And the playing field for NGA – the complex network of incentives and controls – hasn’t yet been worked out.
It’s a tangled maze of options – but somewhere in it, there’s a path to Britain’s technological future.